A mountain hunting is planned for at least a year, or even two. There are rare exceptions, so called "burning tours" – when someone suddenly refuses a pre-planned trip. It goes without saying that we always try to choose the time with minimal risk of getting into bad weather. However, the mountain weather is always unpredictable, and is generally "the devil in the snuffbox" in the Kamchatka mountains. Your chances to have good weather and everything will turn out in the best way are the same as if you play in casino and want to get jackpot. This is the main thing that a hunter should understand when hes is going to get a trophy in Kamchatka.
I could say that fate took pity on me that time and we were lucky with the weather. On Sunday we arrived in Elizovo. It was warm, and we even managed to swim in the thermal springs and sunbathe a little. The temperature rose just above 20C, and the most important thing was that the sun was shining with might and main! The Hydrometeorological Center promised rain in Petropavlovsk and sunny weather in Palana, where we were planning to get in the next morning. I compared the forecast of the three "Hydrometeorological Centers" that I was able to find on the Internet, they all predicted exactly that scenario. I couldn't say that they all lied godlessly, because it really rained (but in Palana), and it was sunny (although in Yelizovo). You should trust only your eyes in Kamchatka. The sky over Palana was covered with clouds, which was why the departure of our plane was delayed eight times. None of the passengers were in a hurry to leave the airport, because they knew that if it suddenly the clouds cleared there, they would be allowed to fly. And it could happen there at any moment (as, however, it could not). The hope dies last, especially since Tuesday was a day off at the local airport, and they would have to wait for departure until Wednesday.
In general, the infrastructure of Kamchatka leaves a depressing impression. It is the only region in the world where nobody takes care about the roads' building. There are roads even in the poorest countries of Africa that somehow connect all settlements with each other. But there are not roads at all between some villages on Kamchatka. As the locals explained me later, a part of the road, about 200 km in the distance wasn't been completed for several decades. It cut off Palana and the entire Koryak district from the rest of the Kamchatka population. The only transport there is an airplane, which depends entirely on the weather. It doesn't matter if there are a funeral, a wedding, or an important meeting - you're a hostage to weather's whims. If there is weather - you fly, if no - you have to sit and wait for it. It's a mystery to me why the authority treats to people in such way there.
Kamchatka old-timers never set the exact time of the meeting. Any distance for them is "close", except for the one that is " too far away". When you live in Moscow, you try to plan a day and to schedule an appointment for a certain time. You calculate which kind of transport – personal or public - it is more reasonable to use in order to be in time everywhere. But if you live there and If the meeting is really important, it is necessary to arrive at the agreed place in advance (a day or two!), otherwise there is a high probability of its disruption The first recommendation given by the local outfitter is: Accept it! You are completely dependent on the weather and should be prepared for the worst case scenario. I had already written somewhere that there were cases when people were forced to spend nine out of ten hunting days under the tent roof.
I was lucky as it was mentioned above. Yes, there was a morning delay at the airport, but there was a silver lining. I met a flight from Moscow with which Viktor Nikolaevich Kim, Alexey Kim and Sergey Mazurkevich arrived. I hope that they enjoyed our communication as much as I did. Before we went our separate ways, we agreed to have dinner together if I didn't leave before evening. But there was a flight, and we left the capital of Kamchatka and landed in Palana. even in the light of day. I had scared you with the weather of Kamchatka, but that wasn't all. Those who are going to fly to the north of the peninsula need to keep in mind that locals call the weather in the north "death".
They say the same about the local aeronautics. There are two Kamchatka Airlines planes – Yak-40 and AN-26 that fly to Palana. I don't know how the Yak-40 looks like there, but the AN-26 has made the most indelible impression! The only thing that I didn't see there was any holes in the skin, although I couldn't guarantee that they weren't there, in that thoroughly worn-out "bucket with bolts". As the flight attendant joked that it was a bucket but the reliable one. It was reliable, although it didn't make such an impression on an outsider. The ticket price included transportation of no more than 20 kg of luggage together with hand luggage. You should pay extra for the rest of the weight. And if you have confirmed your solvency, then you will have to pay double the rate. After I'd paid for the "rest of the weight", they found me in the line and happily informed that they had not guessed to increase the "coefficient" when had been checking me before and asked to pay extra. I didn't object, because I hoped that the surcharge would go to patching holes in the plane.
Few words about the ticket's cost. The cost of Aeroflot business class for the flight Moscow - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (flight duration 11 hours) amounted to 112 thousand rubles. I had paid 57 thousand rubles (plus 8 thousand for luggage) for an hour and a half flight to Palana in economy class, I paid more than half. Probably, such price is because for the fact that you are trusted to carry and load luggage on the plane yourself, I had to "stock up" for hunting in Kamchatka thoroughly. The outfitter recommended to take the clothes due to the uncertainty with the weather and its features in the mountains, those recommendations indicated the probability of a very thorough temperature spread - from +25 to -20C. As a result I took clothes, shoes and gifts (I was carrying books as presents), more than 50 kilograms. I had handed over my weapons, and dragged my "cast-iron" suitcases to the bus, then we drove up to the plane, the command came: "Women with children sit in the cabin, men line up in a chain and start loading things.” We were handing our belongings to the co-pilot, who habitually placed them in the aircraft and tightened the net. Perhaps it remains only to add that passengers get into the cabin through the "bomb bay" (ramp).
The flight lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes. Vladimir, a hunter from Yekaterinburg, was flying next to me. He was an experienced guy and undertook to explain that the flight was heavy, there was serious turbulence in the air, and therefore it was necessary to prepare competently, it meant to drink thoroughly. I refused, but he brought his plans to life with all his heart, after which he fell asleep so soundly that I barely managed to wake him up on arrival. In general, the story of bringing alcohol on board was quite funny. Volodya, as an "experienced" person, took alcohol with him. He realized that hand luggage had to be inspected, he poured alcohol into a thermos and tried to carry it as tea. It didn't work. The airport staff offered him either to pour out or to drink tea. Vladimir went to pour the contents of the thermos into the toilet, but there he said to himself: “NO! It couldn't be so”. And as a result, he still managed to carry alcohol in a thermos on board. But I was surprised by the fact that that guy was only on his second field hunt and decided to get a sheep. I asked about the reasons that prompted him to go after a snow sheep because I was convinced that it was necessary to "grow up" to mountain hunting. He replied that he wanted to... test himself.
My trip was carried out by the Stalker company, they issued all the necessary documents, bought tickets and so on, they did their part of the work. The task that stood before me – to get to Palana - I completed. Now it was up to the local organizers.
Konstantin Kallin met me at the airport. He quickly organized the receipt of weapons, helped to load the luggage into the car, and we drove to the "safe house" apartment. He has such a flat in Palana in case a client or aen employee needs to spend the night in the city or for some other needs. In our case, there was a need to change into hunting clothes. I would like to note the competent approach to the organization of the tour on the part of Konstantin. He suggested not to waste time, although there was time ("We'd better leave it in reserve"). There were a few hours before dark, and he offered to have lunch, to change clothes in that apartment and go to the tundra to the nearest base on the ATV. It was 35 kilometers away (about 3.5-4 hours of traffic on the ATV), and we could continue our way from there on tomorrow.
So, we did.
I should say that we literally straddled the all - terrain vehicle, we sat on the "armor". The widest 360-degree panorama opened from a height of about three meters. And the views were very, very interesting. The car was walking among the hills, then through the swamps, then across the endless grass carpet of the tundra. It was a little shaken, and our vehicle produced an abundance of noise as I was warned . But it was enough to put on headphones to compensate for the latter (I strongly recommend taking them with you). I paid little attention to the inconveniences, because admired by the pictures of Kamchatka nature and ... counted bears with the breathtaking delight of the discoverer. I accounted 12 individuals that day. The next day I saw two dozen. In total, more than 40 bears were encountered during the entire hunting period! It should be understood that the usual active time for those animals was morning and evening, during the day they were much less common. It was interesting to note that bears with offspring often caught the eye as a rule, there were three cubs. Konstantin explained that the problem for female bears was an adult male who moved cautiously, unnoticeable and was always ready to attack, kill and devour cubs. Cubs up to the age of two are the easy food for an eternally hungry adult male, and almost all mature animals are cannibals specializing in tracking down cubs. Therefore, the female bears choose open places in order to detect danger in time, that's why they are more often fall into our eyes.
An interesting point is that when bears fight, they substitute each other's sides, and winner kills the other not with a powerful blow of the paw, but grabs the head with the mouth and bites through the skull.
Since we're talking about bears, I'll run ahead and tell you about one episode that has made me very nervous. It gave me an explosive release of adrenaline into the blood. The guys began to skin and butcher the sheep when I got it and I knew the way to the camp and decided to go there. That journey should take about four hours, and since the guys were better walker than me, they would have caught me up anyway. The chief guide agreed, and I went. My mistake was that I took the carbine with only three cartridges in the magazine. I had already walked decently along the gorge, at the very bottom of which a nimble stream flowed, when I suddenly saw a bear, which was moving towards me. I climbed higher and then I saw two large cubs behind the first one… It was unclear what to do. It was only clear that I had to start shooting only as a last resort. And then I remembered that I only had three cartridges! I felt uncomfortable. I started shouting to stop the bear, but it didn't hear me, apparently because of the noise of the stream, and the wind was to my side. The distance between us was inexorably shrinking, and all I had to do was climb the gorge as high as possible. The speed with which I climbed the mountain would had been envied by Father Fyodor from the "Twelve Chairs", who ran away with sausage from Ostap Bender and Kisa Vorobyaninov (comedy movie). Finally, I reached the dominant height and began to throw stones at the bears (not out of mischief at all) , but the animals continued to move persistently in my direction. They noticed that the "last Chinese warning" only when the stone almost hit the bear. After that, the female bear finally noticed me and did not go in my direction, but ... ran. The tension in my vocal cords reached its limit. It seemed to me that my cry would drown out the whole chorus of Pyatnitsky. But it didn’t help. I raised the carbine to the shoulder, took off the safety and prepared to shoot. I wasn't afraid of cubs; I didn’t know why. The shaggy mother jumped twenty meters away and dragged her offspring with her...
I didn't go down right away. At last I came down and went very quickly looking back periodically. When I got to the place where we agreed to meet, I called the guys on the radio. They answered reasonable that I was warned about a large number of animals, there might be a large predator behind every bush here. Kamchatka is not a park forest near Moscow. It turned out that eight bears with cubs walked in that area, and the guys knew them "by sight". I was lucky to run into one who never gave way and always went ahead.
Let's return to our journey on the ATV. I devoted three and a half hours of the journey to a careful inspection of the surroundings, I had the opportunity to feel how exciting it was to walk through the tundra, through the swamps.
There was a place for Konstantin's kurtzhaar in our company. Birds' hunting was allowed, and we were able to shoot two snipes, a partridge and a grouse while driving. We ate them later. Konstantin has an immutable law - to get an animal only for business. We did wonderful chops from the grouse breast!
We reached the base camp safely. There was even a fireplace and Internet in the log cabin. We had a snack, talked a little about plans for tomorrow. The plan for the next day was to get up early in the morning and to move to another, already tent, camp, and it was 13 hours of travel.
All Tuesday we were shaking on the GTS, like exiled Decembrists on a cart, looking around, counting bears, photographing the surroundings. In the middle of the way we stopped to catch fish and pick mushrooms - as much as it was needed for food We managed to see three bears during fishing, the one of them came quite close - about thirty meters. In that regard, I received a command to get a carbine, otherwise it was not clear what that "guy" had in mind.
We arrived at the camp when it was already dark, settled in our "bungalows" (a tent with a stove). Our chef Lena cooked immediately fish and mushrooms.
The guides came an hour later, and told that they had detected a group of sheep, if the weather permitted, we would approach it in the morning.
The weather was fine. We woke up, had breakfast and set off. We had three horses. The guides loaded a tent, sleeping bags and food, just in case. Everything was serious there: you go for a day, take it for a week. The previous hunter got a trophy late in the evening, and they had to spend the night by the campfire, since it was not raining.
When we got to the place, Konstantin set a scope and tried to find sheep on the slope. And he found them! It seemed that they were not far away, only a few kilometers from us, but it was Kamchatka! Up and down all the way. We did so not less than eight times.
At the beginning when we started, we were riding horses. Telling the truth, I was the only who was riding the horse. They wanted to save my strength for climbing the mountain, while the guys led the horses by the reins. It took us five hours to reach the foot of the mountains, then we had a snack, discussed how to approach the sheep. There were two options, but chief guide identified the one that turned out to be correct. We went. And then the guys applied a psychological technique - they explained me that it was necessary to climb relatively low – "to that place over there.” And as soon as we got up, they began to assure that we still needed to get up. They did several times until we found ourselves at the dominant height three hours later. I was already getting angry: "Why didn't you say so right away?!” They smiled: "It would be too hard right away.”
There we made some pictures on the top with the banner of the Club of Mountain Hunters , after walked along the ridge to the place where the view of the sheep was supposed to open. But then we were disappointed – there were no rams there! What should we do, where did they go? The boss guide got up, looked around and saw that they were... right below us. We lay down immediately but the leader had already noticed something and was staring in our direction.
I measured the distance. There were just 160m! The only inconvenience was that I should have to shoot at a large angle. I aimed at the leader – it was the largest. It was my mistake. The trajectory passes below the target when you shoot from top to bottom. I did not make the necessary correction. The bullet literally tore off the leg of the ram. I wounded it! Then I shot again and again, I fired four times. The ram disappeared from sight, however, as did the whole herd.
We went to look and soon made sure that everything was in order, the beast was taken. I got the trophy of Kamchatka snow sheep!
Then we began to make pictures in various angles: with a carbine and without, with a flag and without, with everyone and alone, lying, sitting, standing. And then there was a meeting with the bears in the gorge…
We came in the camp when it was dark. The traditional glass of vodka and a sandwich with red caviar were waited for me already.
The whole hunt took a little more than twelve hours, what was just a moment by local standards. Thus, we saved time for hunting another snow sheep – Koryak snow sheep. I’ll tell about it later.
My heartiest thanks to Konstantin Kamilevich, to "Stalker Group company", thanks to everyone - cook Elena , our guides Gennady , Alexander , Evkumya , assistant Oleg and horse breeder Sergey, as well as our motorist Alexey.
